


whatever is done is your doing

by Mix Stitch (Synph)



Category: Grayson (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Future, Canon Character of Color, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fade to Black, Flirting, Frottage, Future Fic, Happy Ending, Making Out, Minor Character(s), Racism, Resolved Sexual Tension, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-15
Updated: 2015-08-15
Packaged: 2018-04-14 20:44:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4579401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Synph/pseuds/Mix%20Stitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In some cases, rules are meant to be broken. Especially SPYRAL's rules. Helena is hit with this realization two-fold midway through a mission with Dick Grayson that starts to open her eyes to everything that she's been missing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [klose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/klose/gifts).



> Grayson is a relatively new comic and so much of its canon has yet to be revealed. This story, a genre mix more closely linked to spy and soap opera stories than superheroes, is set in a distant alternate universe that starts to diverge from canon around Grayson #9 especially as far as SPYRAL and Helena's role and Dick's future within the organization are concerned. The goal of the story was to incorporate a bunch of things that my awesome rarepair person wanted, specifically, the desire for "anything that blends humour, action, flirty tension, and spy shenanigans" while essentially making Helena/Dick endgame.
> 
> Major thanks to my beta fleetsparrow for the help and support.
> 
> Bonus note: I have literally been on the edge of my seat and wanting to share that I got my fantastic fandom friend Yam as my assignment for this fest. Oh my gosh. Do you know how happy I was? Yam is awesome and I wanted to write a story that'd knock her socks off from the very beginning because she's such a great friend and person!

Objectively, Helena knows that this isn't supposed to be real.

She knows that she and Dick are playing a role and that there's only so much time before the game will end. Honestly, Helena _does_ know that at the end of the mission things will go back to normal and SPYRAL's anti-fraternization policy will go back to place.

She knows that and still –

Helena doesn't duck her head or look away when Dick walks out of the bathroom in their suite with a tiny scrap of towel knotted loosely around his waist and one towel draped over his broad shoulders. She stares without shame, eyes falling on the drops of water that slide steadily down Dick's skin as if she could trace their path with her tongue.

After all, Helena tells herself, they're supposed to be undercover as a couple. It'd look strange if she _didn't_ appreciate her handsome husband in some way. The situation might be manufactured and their relationship as fake as their current identities, but Helena isn't about to shy away from the hard parts.

"Come here," Helena says, gesturing at the bed in front of her. "We're going to be late. Sit down and let me dry your hair for you." She smiles at the way that Dick's impossibly blue eyes widen and his pace quickens until he's standing in front of her.

Thanks to Helena's sleek black Louboutins, she and Dick are of a height with one another. Without them, she'd be just short enough that she'd have to look up at him. That's part of the reason why most of Helena's footwear for this assignment is made up of towering stilettos instead of her normal functional boots and low-stacked heels.

Dick smiles, those gorgeous eyes crinkling up at the corners. If he's uncomfortable with being nearly naked in front of her or pretending to be her husband or any of this – Well, Dick's not showing any of it.

"Be gentle with me," Dick says in a teasing tone. Sitting down on the edge of bed, Dick tilts his head forward, almost baring his neck to Helena's attention. When she takes the towel from around Dick's neck and starts to rub at his head with brisk strokes, Dick only utters a happy murmur and sways, almost leaning into her touch.

Helena has to stifle her own laughter.

"You're like a big kitten," she says, smiling as she makes short work of drying Dick's hair.

Tossing the towel aside, Helena allows herself the opportunity to card her fingers through Dick's short black hair, scratching at his scalp with her nails until he grunts and twists, turning his face up to look at her.

Dick licks his lips slowly, nostrils flaring as he breathes in deeply. Here, his eyes don't quite meet Helena's and there's a faint flush to his cheeks that makes Helena feel like she should be blushing too.

"I thought you said that we were going to be late," Dick says. He pulls away from where Helena has her hands in his hair, shifting to stand up in front of her. The smile on his face is confusing and Helena has no idea what it's meant to convey. "We can't stay away from all the other guests all week. That'd defeat the purpose of coming on this mission in the first place."

The words hit Helena like a splash of ice-cold water to the face, ending their moment before it could even really begin. It's not like her to be so distracted. Not while she's on a mission. But there's something about Dick that short circuits her common sense at the worst possible time.

"Dick –" Helena pauses, feeling her mouth purse with a frown. She shakes her head. "You're right. We should probably head out before someone gets suspicious."

The smile on Dick's face is small and brittle. "We're supposed to be playing newlyweds, but we can't stay in here all day." He moves away from the bed, away from Helena to where his clothes for the evening – a pair of black slacks and a shirt in a pale blue – are hanging from a hook near the dresser. "I'll get dressed in the bathroom."

"You don't have to –" Helena feels the words dry up in her mouth. She shakes her head and then strokes one hand down the front of her dress with her fingers touching the edges of the cutouts that bare her skin. "Never mind. I'll – I'll do my makeup out here. The mirror's big enough."

*

Outside of their rooms, Helena and Dick aren't themselves.

They aren't Helena Bertinelli and Dick Grayson.

They aren't even Matron and Agent 37.

They haven't been since the second that they set foot on the cruise ship earlier in the week when passengers started boarding in Puerto Rico. Out here on the wide open seas and thousands of miles away from SPYRAL's home base, they're entirely different people. Helena and Dick might not be allowed to do more than smile at each other in the halls of SPYRAL, but public displays of affection are all but expected of Helena and Richard Hayden on their honeymoon cruise.

Once outside of their suite, Helena fixes the wrap draped loosely around her shoulders and then gives Dick an expectant look as he stands in front of their door, fingers clenched tight around the key card.

"Dick – " Helena touches the side of Dick's right forearm, the brief contact almost enough to snap Dick out of his trance. When he turns to look at her, Helena manages to smile despite the sudden anxiety all but _gnawing_ at her stomach. "You can do this," she says in a firm tone. " _We_ can do this. All we have to do is make it through dinner and a little bit of mingling and we can split up tomorrow. I know you don’t want to do this, but –"

In hindsight, Helena isn't sure why she chose Dick to be her husband on this mission. There are any number of attractive male agents in SPYRAL, any number of them that'd've been more than happy to be stuck on a cruise ship with Helena for more than a week. Even Tiger would have leapt at the chance to sniff out and take down the ring of smugglers snatching vacationing metahumans and taking them to parts unknown – and Helena knows that Tiger is actually happy to remain in England, in charge of his section of SPYRAL.

Helena is so lost in her own thoughts that she almost misses Dick talking to her.

"It's not that I don't want to do this," Dick fires back, a sharp note in his voice. "It's not. But Helena – You can't tell me that this isn't a little bit weird. You're my boss and well…" Dick trails off with a helpless looking shrug and a pinched look settling on his face. "You're off limits so much of the time. Even though I know we're both attracted to each other, we couldn't do anything about it because you were my partner and then you were my boss and now –"

Dick pauses and then turns to give Helena a lingering onceover that feels smoldering. "Now you're my wife."

Helena blinks, taken aback. "Dick, I –"

Before she can say anything else, Dick shakes his head at her.

"No," Dick says, "I'm sorry for bringing it up. We shouldn't be talking about this out here." He crooks his arm, holding it out in offering for Helena to take. When he has Helena pressed close and almost tucked into his side, Dick actually smiles at her. Sure, it doesn't even _begin_ to meet his eyes, but it's a start. "Let's go to dinner before someone comes down to look for us."

Helena nods and then pats Dick's arm.

"If you – if you want to talk," Helena offers, "I'm here and you _can_ talk to me. We're sharing a bed after all and unless you're willing to pretend that I'm not here, we're going to have to talk about this at some point."

Helena keeps one thought to herself, the part about how Dick's confession makes her feel like she can do anything, like she's not alone in wanting. She smiles instead of speaking as they walk to the elevator on their floor, clinging especially close when another couple their age leaves their own room and starts walking past them in the opposite direction.

At the elevator, Dick pulls back just slightly. The bank of elevators is empty of people and some of the tension in Dick's broad shoulders relaxes. Heedless of the way that his shirt has to be getting wrinkled, Dick slumps back against the faux wooden paneling between the different elevators.

"Is there anything I should know before we head up to dinner," Dick asks as he leans against the wall. "Or will we just make things up as we go."

Like this, with his pale blue shirt unbuttoned just enough to showcase the curve of his collarbone and a mouth that seems made for kissing, Dick looks like a model. He looks like the stereotypical spy right down to the cool look on his face and Helena feels her face warm with a blush. Thankfully, due to both the dimness of the elevator bank and Helena's dark skin, Dick doesn't seem to notice.

"You remember how we met," Helena says with a faint smile settling on her lips as she remembers the sappy story that the two of them had come up with in order to avoid setting off any radars. The whole point is that they're supposed to look like they're in love not like they're hunting for the worst kind of scum. "Everything else is up in the air. All we need to remember is the PDA."

Helena winces both at the sound of the words coming out of her mouth and the damn near _gleeful_ grin on Dick's face and quickly tries to cover it up.

"What?"

Dick shakes his head. "It's nothing," he says with a smirk, "I'm just savoring the fact that you can talk like a regular 20-something when you want to."

"I _am_ a regular 20-something," Helena says with a soft snort. She opens her mouth to say more but then the elevator closest to them dings and opens with a muted whisper of sound. There's no one in the elevator to interrupt them, no one to make the mood shift from comfortable to awkward, but that doesn't mean that the mood doesn't change anyway.

The ship's elevator is smooth and slow moving. Helena takes one side while Dick leans up against the far side with his arms crossed. He doesn't look at her, not until the elevator slows to a stop and the door opens to reveal an entire family of Chinese-American tourists standing impatiently in front of it. Helena takes the hint and crosses over to Dick's side, fitting against his side as if there's no other place that she belongs.

As the family crowds into the elevator, Helena finds herself doing an awkward little shuffle in order to keep from getting squashed between Dick and the wall or stepping on anyone's toes with her heels.

Finally, Helena moves so that she can stand in front of Dick. She settles her body against his as the elevator continues its slow crawl upward and thankfully, manages to keep from flinching when Dick touches her. One strong arm curves around Helena's belly, callused fingers sliding over the skin revealed by the cutouts in her dress as Dick's chin rests on Helena's shoulder.

When Dick murmurs something too low for Helena to hear clearly even with their proximity to one another, Helena feels sweat start to prick at the nape of her neck. Heat warms her stomach as the weight of Dick's arm distracts her from almost everything else, even the family of tourists and the not-so-subtle stares that she can feel previously drifting over her skin.

"Richard," Helena says, tilting her head back slightly.

Dick licks his lips. "Y-yes, Helena?" The husky note to Dick's voice makes Helena bite at her lip.

"This is – this is our floor," Helena says in a tone that sounds embarrassingly breathless. "Maybe we should get off?"

Dick blinks at Helena, his eyes huge and dark with his hunger. "Oh," he says on an exhale. "Okay."


	2. Part Two

Their first formal dinner on the cruise ship is an ordeal to say the least.

Helena and Dick sit at a wide table with three other couples, their fake personas pasted on so firmly that even they start to believe what they're saying. Helena allows Dick to pull her chair out for her and then, once she's seated, she allows him to scoot his chair close over the dense carpet until their knees brush underneath the tablecloth. That brief touch and the few that follow throughout dinner are the only good things about their first (and hopefully, last) formal dinner on the ship.

By the time that they finally finish their dessert course – with Helena ordering an extra glass of wine just to ease the throbbing pulse of annoyance in her head – the tension around the table is thick enough to cut with a spoon. One of the couples seated at the table with them is lovely but the other two—

If Helena wasn't hip deep into this mission, she'd be half tempted to throw the two couples off the boat at the very first chance that she gets.

As it stands though, Helena puts up with the staring and the not so subtle comments about her skin and the nature of her and Dick's relationship with little more than the urge to get very drunk, very quickly. Anyone that doesn't know her would be hard pressed to see the physical signs of her anger and annoyance but then – what their dinner companions don't pick up on, Dick can't help but notice.

The second that dinner ends, Dick rises to his feet and makes their excuses.

"This was lovely," Dick says in a soft tone pitched so that only Helena can hear the sarcasm in his voice. He stands up and then nods at their dinner partners.. "As much as we've enjoyed meeting you all, I think it's time for Helena and I to head in for the night." Dick smiles at Helena with heat and hunger very plain on his face. If Helena was anyone else or just a little more drunk, she'd be swooning over that look.

As it stands, Helena finds herself smiling up at him.

Fake husband or not, Dick is still compelling enough to make her pulse jump. It takes everything in Helena not to turn and fix the more annoying of the two couples with a greedy, almost gleeful look.

Dick isn't rude about getting them out of the dining room, but there's no mistaking the way that he helps Helena out of her chair and curls his arm around her waist as anything other than eager protectiveness. Dick sweeps Helena out of the dining room and within minutes, he has her back in the elevator on the way down to their room.

In the empty elevator, Helena allows herself the freedom to toe off her heels and stand barefoot beside Dick. Carefully not thinking about how many germs must be on the floor, Helena sighs and curls her toes in against the cool tile, basking in the chill that chases away the residual ache from wearing high heels all night.

"I hate how they talked to you," Dick says into the silence. He's closer to Helena now than he had been earlier in the night, standing hip to hip with her in the elevator without touching her. His fingers flex, wrist twisting as Dick moves to move. "I don't know what was worse: that they kept talking around us or that they kept talking down to you."

Helena shrugs. "I'm used to it by now,"

Sadly, Helena isn't lying. A few minutes of a cold shoulder and a few rude words aren't anything to Helena. She's dealt with much worse and here, the little things aren't of any consequence. She can handle racists and racism by now, just by how _much_ of it she's had to deal with through the years.

Helena lets her head drop back against the gleaming chrome of the elevator wall, the thud muted by her hair.

"I'm used to worse."

"You shouldn't have to be," Dick spits out. When Helena glances at him, she's surprised to notice the tight clench to his jaw and the way that he looks so very _angry_. "You're worth ten of them at least."

Helena licks her suddenly dry lips. "Dick, I –"

The elevator doors open on their floor and Helena falls silent, the words that she wants to say staying stuck in her throat. Helena lets Dick lead the way, scooping up her heels and holding them with her fingers hooked in the backs of them as she follows Dick down the empty hallway.

At the door to their room, Dick pauses. His grip on the keycard seems too tight and the frown on his face isn't clear.

"Helena –"

"Yes," Helena says, her own voice catching in her throat. Dick's face, normally so open to her, is closed off. She sucks her bottom lip into her mouth, teeth sinking into the flesh until it hurts. But then, the pain is better than saying all of the ill-advised things that she wants to say.

"Have you ever wanted something that you can't have?" Dick asks, his fingers still curled around the keycard. He doesn't look at Helena, but the heat of his attention is ever present like something very touchable.

Helena nods first and then breathes a "Yes" with a shaky note in her voice.

Dick swipes the keycard and then shoves the door open. He walks inside and then holds the door for Helena. Their bodies come close, so close, but he still doesn't touch her. He still doesn't caress her the way that Helena thinks she needs.

The door closes behind them with a muted thud, plunging them into darkness as the light form the hallway vanishes. Helena can barely see the bed. She can barely see Dick's face. She smiles in the darkness, feeling freer than she probably should.

"We have time left," Helena says. "We have less than a week before we have to go back to normal. So why don't we – why don't we stop pretending?" Helena reaches up and flattens her palm over Dick's chest right over his heart. "We're both perfectly capable of multitasking, Dick. At least, _I_ think we are."

Dick growls, the sound so thick with hunger that Helena feels goosebumps raise up on her skin. He takes a step forward in the darkness until he stands toe to toe with her. This close, Helena can't help but stare at him. She can't help but gaze into Dick's eyes and _want_.

"Helena, I –" Dick's hands are hot where they curve over the skin of her bare arms, fingers like iron bands as they encircle her arms. "Are you sure about this?"

Nodding, Helena refuses to allow herself to feel any fear at all. "I am," she says quietly. Then she smiles in order to try and break the tension in the room. "Do you know how long I've been thinking about this?"

Dick nods without looking away from Helena's face. "I think I can guess," he murmurs, desire making his voice sound even rougher. He pauses. "Should we really do this all right now?"

As much as Helena desperately wants to take Dick, to push him back towards the bed and take what she needs from him, there's a very vocal part of her mind that keeps her from surging forward.

"You're right," Helena says. "We'll take baby steps," she announces, "Make the most out of our time together." She pulls away from the tempting clench of Dick's embrace and then reaches out to flick on the lights underneath the mirror. Even though those lights are dim, Helena and Dick can see each other so clearly.

Helena turns, showing Dick her back. She glances over her shoulder at him, smiling as he stares at her.

"Will you help me take off my dress?" When Dick doesn't move, Helena tries again. "At least, could you help me undo the zipper? My arms don't exactly bend that way." Helena tries not to cry out with triumph when Dick moves to stand behind her, but her body probably telegraphs her eagerness.

Dick's hands don't shake one bit as he slides down the zipper on Helena's dress. He goes slowly, tugging the zipper down bit by bit as if he wants to savor the experience (and he probably does). With every inch of skin revealed, Helena's breath comes faster and faster until she's almost panting.

"Dick –"

Helena's breath catches audibly when she feels that first brush of Dick's mouth against her skin. When he kisses the nape of her neck, Helena feels her knees go _weak_. She sags against him, a quiet noise slipping free from her mouth as one of Dick's hands curves in against her belly. From that touch alone, Helena's skin feels too tight and she _aches_. From that touch alone, she's tempted to forget about the mission and the smugglers and just spend the rest of their time together locked up in the room with Dick's hands on her skin and his mouth on hers.

Strangely enough, that thought is a sobering one.

Helena _can't_ do that. She can't abandon the mission even for a full course of something she's wanted since the second that she saw Dick's face or heard one of his corny jokes in person. All she can have are these little tastes, spaced out so that she doesn't get addicted to the feel of his mouth or the way that his body fits against hers.

"That's enough for tonight, I think," Dick says with amusement clear in his voice. He drops one more kiss across Helena's skin, lips burning like a brand, before he pulls away, leaving Helena bereft of his touch. "We should take things slowly."

Helena manages to hold back the whimper that threatens to escape. She flattens one hand to her stomach and tries to focus on breathing and not the maddening urge in her head to turn around and kiss Dick senseless.

"You're right," Helena says instead of what her subconscious wants her to say (any number of things revolving around what the two of them can do in a big suite like this and a big bed like the one they're going to share in a matter of minutes). She licks her lips again, something she's been doing a lot off around Dick and then glances at her still unpacked suitcase. "Do you mind if I use the bathroom first?"

Dick shakes his head, a faint smile on his lips.

"Nah," he says, "You go first. I'll get the bed ready."

*

Helena takes one look at the nightgown that she'd grabbed from her suitcase without looking and immediately wishes that someone in SPYRAL had at least given her veto power as far as fashion is concerned.

Made out of white silk and stopping just above her knees, her nightgown certainly doesn't make Helena feel like anyone's spinster aunt. The problem, Helena notices as she leans forward in the mirror above the bathroom sink, is that what the dress _does_ reveal is a little too much.

The nightgown isn't bad, but Helena can't help but notice its nearly sheer fabric or the way that every breath she takes makes the nightgown's lacy décolletage rise and fall and if _she_ can't look away from her own breasts, what will Dick do? Going out into the room with Dick might just be a mistake.

A knock on the door startles Helena who jumps and bangs her elbow against the wall.

"Yes," Helena calls out a second later when she's sure that her voice will come out in a modulated tone, "Do you need something?"

Even with a door between them, the sound of Dick's voice manages to thrill Helena.

"Oh no, I was just wondering if you had fallen in the toilet or something," he says through the door. "Is everything okay?"

Helena nods and then remembers that Dick can't see her through the door. She unlocks the bathroom door and then pushes it open. Somehow, she manages to miss hitting Dick with the heavy door and yet, he's the first thing she sees.

Dick is shirtless. This shouldn't be a surprise to Helena because even on their field missions Dick tends to find reasons to strip off his shirt. She's seen him bare from the waist up more times than she can count, but this time there's something different.

"Helena," Dick says, his voice soft. "You look – You're _beautiful_."

Helena's first instinct is to brush off the compliment and she opens her mouth to do just that. She thinks better of it when Dick reaches out and touches her arm with the sort of wide-eyed and _hungry_ look that makes Helena feel like clutching him to her. For once, Helena will take the compliment along with whatever else Dick is willing to give to her.

Dick tugs once at Helena's arm, the touch light but not undemanding. When she steps out of the bathroom and into the circle of his arms, Dick pauses, lips parted and his eyes so full of emotion that it makes Helena's heart skip a beat.

"Can I – can I kiss you, Helena?"

How exactly is Helena supposed to say no to that?

How is she supposed to say anything aside from 'yes', 'please', and the always appropriate 'If you don't, I might just have to kill you'?

Helena reaches up and cups the nape of Dick's neck with the palm of her hand, pulling his head down at the same time as she rocks upward. Their first kiss – their first _real_ kiss – makes Helena sigh and press as close as she can without winding her limbs around his body. Helena's mouth falls open, uttering a quiet moan as Dick's hand settles low on her back. The heat of his touch is nearly scalding and Helena can't figure out what she wants more of: the heat of Dick's skin against her own or the perfect fit of his mouth.

Admittedly, Helena _is_ somewhat under the influence. While she isn't drunk, Helena is riding on a pleasant little buzz from the wine that she drank on dinner. That buzz goes a long way to loosening her limbs and making Helena go after the main thing that she's wanted for _months_.

Helena has kissed more than her fair share of attractive people both before and after working at SPYRAL. She's had princes in the palm of her hand and yet somehow the hesitant way that Dick kisses her, the way that he holds her close and nuzzles at her mouth with a soft persistence, beats all of that. Perhaps it's because this isn't a lie and that for once, Helena _isn't_ pretending to feel something for the person she's kissing, but she throws herself into the kiss, matching Dick's hunger with her own.

The hand that Dick has resting on the small of Helena's back starts moving restlessly over the skin kept hidden by her nightgown. He hesitates before touching her further, sliding his hand around to grip at Helena's hip and haul her in close. So close, in fact, that Helena can feel the heavy curve of his cock nudging against her through the thin silk of her nightgown.

"Mm, Dick," Helena moans. Her fingers flex against Dick's skin, sweeping along the curve of his strong neck in order to grip at his close-cropped hair and tug him closer. Their kisses only deepen the longer they stand there and when Helena finally pulls away from Dick's kisses, she does so with a quiet sound.

Helena doesn't want to let Dick go.

She doesn't, but she _has_ to.

"We should go to bed," Helena says. At the way that Dick's eyes immediately widen, she rushes to clarify. "For sleep, Dick. For sleep." She crosses her arms just under her breasts and then offers Dick a smile that feels tremulous on her face. "Don't look at me like that, Dick. It was your idea to go slowly."


	3. Part Three

Despite not going any further before crawling into bed together, Helena and Dick wake up all but wrapped around one another. Waking up with her face pressed against Dick's firm chest and one leg slung across his should be awkward.

Maybe it would be if Helena hadn't woken up like this every morning on the cruise. By now, even with the desire arcing between them like electricity, Helena is fast becoming used to waking up entangled with Dick.

This is however, the first morning that waking up to find herself curled around Dick's body doesn't leave them both in a state. The morning after their mutual confessions and the decision to do _something_ about their shared attraction is surprisingly calm and Helena pulls into sleepy wakefulness against Dick's side.

"How did you sleep?" Dick asks.

Helena props herself up on her elbow, stretching out beside Dick until her back pops.

"Surprisingly well," Helena confesses, directing a small smile at Dick. "Sorry if I drooled on you again or anything."

Dick's smile is quick and bright, full of the sort of happiness that makes Helena outright _wish_ that they could've done this sooner. He leans into her, mouth already open for a kiss.

Of course, Helena gives in. The kiss that they share is soft and almost chaste, lasting just long enough to whet their appetites for one another. Helena pulls back first, her face feeling warm as a smile curves up her own mouth.

"I'm going to freshen up," Helena says, sitting up and shaking out the thick curls of her hair. Thanks to the cap that stayed on most of the night, Helena's hair isn't _too_ much of a mess and so, when she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror across from their bed, she doesn't feel like flinging something heavy at it. The picture that the two of them make, Helena with her sleep-rumpled hair and Dick with his heavy-lidded gaze resting squarely on her face–

It's –

It's _something_.

"I should go –" Helena says, her tone not at all convincing.

"Yeah," Dick murmurs, his voice thick with something that certainly _isn't_ sleep. Dick's eyes dip down from their careful perusal of her face down to her cleavage. "You probably should."

*

After both Helena and Dick get out of the bathroom, their plans start to settle into place.

Midway to the Trinidad, the cruise ship isn't due to dock for another day.

After several days of hopping from one tropical port to another, the break in the routine gives Helena and Dick a chance to do search the ship for more clues. Their contact – a former Checkmate agent on permanent contract in the ship's infirmary – has a few hours set aside, but that's Dick's thing. Short of an emergency, Helena isn't going to risk blowing their cover or his.

"We should split up," Helena says, dropping down onto the chair in front of the suite's vanity. Helena puts in her earrings as she thinks, mouth pursing with a frown as she tries to plan her steps for the day. "See if you can get down to the infirmary today to touch base with Doc. I still haven't found where smugglers were using or what they're using to subdue the metahumans and Time is of the essence, we're halfway to the next port and we don't want to miss anything."

Dick frowns as he watches Helena pin back her hair with clips that double as unprimed listening devices and then wrap a see-through floral scarf around the whole thing. "Should you be doing that on your own?"

Helena turns to face him.

"You knew that I was taking point," she points out in a tone that comes close to sounding waspish. "Trust me. I _do_ know what I'm doing. Just worry about yourself." Helena winces at the sharpness in her voice and at the way that Dick flinches, visibly taken aback by her gruffness. "Shit… Dick, I – We have our skills and right now? This is mine."

Shaking his head, Dick doesn't meet Helena's worried gaze. "I know that," Dick insists. "It's just – It's a really big ship, Helena. A lot could happen before I even knew you were in trouble."

Well… There's no missing the genuine fear in Dick's voice. Subtle as it is, Helena _knows_ Dick enough to pick that emotion out of his voice. She knows what scares him and what he can't stop thinking about. She knows more about him than anyone else in the agency and that's got _nothing_ to do with her stint as the one of the heads of the organization.

Helena knows this much about Dick, knows how to read him better than any book she's even _looked_ at in the past four years, because she's looked at him. And apparently, he's been looking back at her.

Helena's teeth sink into the flesh of her bottom lip, not hard enough to sting, much less seriously hurt. This is one of the reasons why SPYRAL frowns upon fraternization between its agents. Once you fraternize, you get attached and attachments aren't good for spies.

Especially when it goes both ways.

"I won't get hurt," Helena says, her voice very firm and very quiet even in their silent suite.

Dick opens his mouth but then, before he can reply to Helena, a knock on the door breaks into the moment. He glances at Helena, the expression on his face unreadable and inscrutable, before getting up.

"It's room service," Dick says as Helena's left hand makes the predictable slide down to the sleek blade kept hidden underneath the vanity's drawers. "I ordered for us while you were in the bathroom. It's nothing."

Helena finds herself scowling, mouth tight. "Dick –"

"I get it," Dick says, still speaking as he opens the door. There's anger in Dick's voice, not much of it true, but enough to make Helena clench her jaw. He takes the cart from the waiter and then presses a folded bill into the man's hand before turning and shutting the door with his foot. He doesn't _quite_ slam the door, but it's close. Very close. "You're the boss so you can do whatever you want. Even when it's dangerous as hell."

The words that hesitate on the tip of Helena's tongue disappear, unsaid. She watches Dick stalk around the suite like a caged panther and she frowns even harder before standing up. The carpet beneath Helena's bare feet is soft but every step that she takes towards Dick feels as if she's stepping on glass just because of how little comfort she feels in this. When Helena is close enough, when Dick is within arms' reach and she can look at his face instead of the unyielding tenseness of his back, she gives in.

"I'm sorry," Helena says, the murmur so low that it almost sounds like a sigh. "I didn't think. I should've – Dick, things _have_ changed. I'm sorry."

Dick's answering shrug is careless.

At least, it looks that way.

"Are you still going to go looking for trouble?" Dick asks after a long moment stretches between them.

Helena nods. "Yes," she says in a decisive tone. "I am. But I'll be careful. You can have the code to my subcutaneous tracker. There's an app on your phone disguised as an ovulation chart and you can use it to find me anywhere in the world if I go missing or don't show up for our lunch date."

The implant, a last resort for an agent that doesn’t have their Hypnos implant activated, has been a familiar scar behind Helena's right ear for as far back as she can remember. This is however, the first time that anyone that isn't in charge has had any access to it.

"You've planned this," Dick says.

The accusatory note that Helena is expecting to hear is absent. She still hears it of course, but that doesn't mean that it's actually there.

Helena shakes her head.

"No," she replies, tone light because it's not a lie. "It's protocol. I just – I didn't expect that you'd be this worried about me."

The rest of what Helena wants to say, the part where she blurts out how "no one has worried about me in _years_ " remains trapped on her tongue. No matter what she and Dick shared the night before, no matter how good it feels to be open with someone that knows her, she can't leap past this last hurdle.

"This is part of why SPYRAL frowns on relationships between agents," Dick murmurs, taking a step forward until he's in Helena's space and she almost _has_ to reach up and loop her arms around his shoulders. "The idea of you getting hurt – I just… I don't think I could handle it."

Helena smiles up at Dick.

"Don't worry," she says as if she can simply _will_ the change in Dick's thought processes. "I refuse to wind up out of commission before we solve this case _or_ before we can finish figuring out what we're doing together." Helena tugs gently at the nape of Dick's neck, mouth opening for a kiss that sends heat down her spine. When the kiss breaks, Helena feels pride and of course, the heady surge of arousal at the way that Dick's mouth looks with the red of her lipstick staining it.

"Three hours," Dick says.

Helena blinks. "Excuse me?"

Dick shrugs, looking a little embarrassed. "We'll meet up for lunch by the sushi bar in three hours," Dick says. "If you're not there or you don't get in touch, I'll come to look for you. Deal?"

Helena licks her lips. She only has to think about it for a second and when she's done, she's smiling.

"It's a deal," she promises. "But what are you going to do for three hours? You can't hang out in the infirmary the entire day. Someone's going to get suspicious."

Dick nods, looking thoughtful. "I'm thinking that I'll get a poorly timed injury around hour two," Dick says with a smile that can only be classified as "roguish". "But I think I'm going to check out the staff quarters. It's not that hard to get in and out and I can borrow a uniform for an hour or two with no problem."

Now, it's Helena's turn to worry. "You have to be careful," she says, already leaning in to kiss Dick one last time. His kiss tastes like her lipstick but underneath – underneath there's a uniqueness that Helena has fast come to associate with kissing him.

"I know."


	4. Part Four

Even on a ship with almost seven thousand passengers, Helena has a hard time simply blending in. For the most part though, it isn't due to the darkness of her skin or the way that her hair curls dark and thick around her head.

Helena knows that she's beautiful. One of the first things that she remembers ever being told is that she was a lovely girl. A lovely girl grown up into a lovely woman is what Helena sees when she passes by a floor length mirror on one of the floors for the wealthy.

Four floors above the room that she and Dick share, the floors dedicated to the rich and the bored look like something from out of a movie. There's gold and gilt _everywhere_ , so many expensive furnishings and tables that she's half expecting to see a guard looking at her funny for daring to breathe near them.

There's a cart in the hallway, a cleaning cart next to a propped open door and Helena hesitates for just a second before she decides that the risk is worth it. In the cart Helena finds more than enough to make up for the risk. She pulls out two keycards and a map of the ship that has a little more detail than the one that their contact Doc had gotten for her.

One of the keycards goes into the left cup of Helena's bra. The other keycard and the map gets tucked inside one of the deep pockets in her surprisingly light dress, not even dragging the fabric down a single inch.

Helena frowns for a moment, deliberating her next move. Finally, she pulls a couple of twenties out of her other pocket and sticks the wad of cash into the very same pocket where she had found the two keycards and the map. It isn't much, but it might help make up for the fact that Helena's probably getting some poor kid fired because of her theft.

Catholic guilt, Helena thinks with a wry frown. It's the one thing that being a spy hasn't managed to cure her of.

Helena takes the stairs to the next floor up. The doors here are glossy with gold leaf. They look like something out of an old-Hollywood film and any minute now, Helena half expects for the ghost of James Dean to swan out of one of the rooms. Helena shakes her head and then smiles.

"You're being a fool," Helena says to herself as she curls her fingers around one of the heavy handles and _pulls_ \--

The door swings open on silent hinges, moving slowly enough that that little impatient part of Helena's brain kicks into overdrive. She slips into the gap between the two doors, moving so smoothly that she doesn't even wrinkle her dress, and then stops.

If the floor beneath her had looked opulent then this one --

Helena doesn't know why she's gaping, slack-jawed at the thick carpet and wide open expanse of a floor of cruise ship suites that are undoubtedly so expensive that Helena couldn't have afforded them before joining SPYRAL. The walls are paneled with real wood and she has a feeling that the carpets underneath her sandaled feet are expensive. With her footsteps muted, Helena takes her time in walking around the large and empty floor. From the passenger manifest, Helena has a good idea of how many people are on this floor. For all its wealth and beauty, only a handful of the rooms on the floor are taken.

The rest are empty.

Or at least, they should be.

Helena hears a sound come out of nowhere. Perhaps, it's coming from one of the occupied rooms. Perhaps it's something else. Helena's fingers clench so hard that she has to remind herself where she is. She counts down the seconds as she walks in the direction of that haunting sound that she realizes is someone _crying_ , her mouth firm with a frown so tight that whatever words she deigns to release are sure to be cutting.

Helena stops at a door marked '610A' and then raps twice with the back of her hand. She waits for a second before knocking again, listening for any sign or sound coming from behind the door. She hears a squeaking cry that she shouldn't possibly be able to hear from behind such a thick door and then the loud sound of a door slamming in the distance.

Helena pulls the keycard from out of her cleavage and then jams it into the door's lock. The seconds pass too slowly, time dragging out until the lights on the key card reader turn from a brilliant red to green. The handle of the door bends underneath the weight of Helena's hand and she frowns, one hand sliding underneath her dress to the knife held fast to her thigh in a leg holster.

Without her crossbow, Helena feels naked.

But then, that's something that was to be expected for her on this mission. Short of someone airdropping her lovely custom-made crossbow into one of the ship's pool in the dead of night, there's no way that Helena is going to be armed to her specifications. She palms the knife, fitting its hilt into the cup of her left hand, and then reaches up to pull one of the clips out of her hair with her other hand.

"Hello?" Helena calls out as she makes it further into the room. She pauses by a table that looks like something out of her father's study back when she was a child and then, with a deft motion, slips the device underneath it. "I heard noises --"

Moments later when she hears footsteps, Helena doesn't flinch. She straightens her spine and hider her knife hand behind her back just in time to catch a glimpse of a tall, thin man with greasy-looking brown hair and a sneer on his face.

"Who are you?" The man barks out.

Helena tamps down her urge to snarl right back, choosing to smile instead.

"I'm a little bit lost, it looks like. I borrowed a key from my boyfriend. He works on the ship. He said that he'd be waiting for me upstairs. Please, don't mind me." Helena's smile is so bright as to be blinding and yet, she can tell that the man in front of her isn't biting. She ducks her head and then bites her lip in a way that no man has ever been able to resist. It makes her look… not younger perhaps, but more… malleable. Either way, the man in front of her is no exception to the rule.

"Your... boyfriend?" The man in front of her frowns briefly before his stance relaxes, eyes narrowing as he takes in Helena's curvy figure from her wrapped up hair right down to the tops of her feet.

Helena shrugs and then smiles again. "You know how it is," she says, thrusting her chest forward in distraction. "Maybe I ended up in the wrong romo." Helena shakes her head. "I won't bother you again, Mr. –" She pauses delicately, waiting for her conversation partner to fill in the blank.

"Ottez," the man says with the wide-eyed look that Helena is used to seeing on her targets' faces. "Jeffrey Ottez."

Helena's smile only widens and it takes real effort to keep the smugness out of her voice.

"Sorry to barge in on you then, Mr. Ottez," Helena says. She heads to the door without turning her back on Ottez, walking slowly so that she doesn't bump into anything. She reaches for the handle and opens the door without turning around. "I'll be seeing you."

*

Helena doesn't know how long it’s supposed to take someone to walk from one end of the massive ship to the other, but she manages it in a half an hour. Of course, she's walking so fast that she might as well be running, but still...

By the time that she drops down into the secluded booth across from Dick, she's out of breath and sweaty. She must look a fright, but Dick merely smiles at her and passes her a napkin to use to blot the sweat at her temples.

"Good hunt?" Dick asks, eyes flicking up to Helena's hair where she knows that her wrap has come dislodged.

Helena nods. "The best," she says in a breathless exhale. "I followed a hunch and I think it panned out. What about you?"

Dick shakes his head, still smiling. "The good doctor had to patch me up after I missed the landing on the water slide," he says. "Doc gave me a few tips and an appointment for later." Dick pauses just long enough for a waiter to come around and set out two glasses of ice-cold water in front of them and then, after Helena drains her glass and guzzles down half of his, he continues speaking. "But enough about me, darling. What've you been up too all day?"

The 'darling' is pushing it.

Just a little.

Helena shakes her head and forces herself to laugh. Underneath the cover of the table though, she kicks Dick square in the ankle and then settles back on her side of the booth with a smile settling on her face.

"The upper suites are nearly empty," Helena says quietly. "And there's more than enough room to hide anything in one of those suites. I was set to check out the storage but I started thinking… What if the packages that we're looking for are where we'd least expect them?"

Dick's brow wrinkles. "What are you talking about?"

"If you were hoarding packages," Helena says, mouth twisting with a frown at the heavy-handed attempt at subtlety, "Would you ship them off one at a time or would you wait until you had everything you needed in one place? Selling lots of packages at a time would bring in a bigger profit, wouldn't it?"

Helena can tell the very moment when Dick gets it. His blue eyes get all wide and then they narrow, filling with obvious rage to the point where Helena starts to worry. She reaches out and covers Dick's left hand with both of her own, squeezing gently until some of the anger seeps out of his eyes.

"You think that's what they're doing?"

Helena nods. Once. "Most of the suites are massive and share a connecting door," she says, "If you get a package in one room, then you don't have to go back into the hallway if you're trying to keep it a surprise."

"What makes you think that?"

Helena frowns. "I heard something, Richard," she says, voice dropping low as she leans over the table. "I heard a sound like someone crying and when I knocked, I heard a door slam. I think that's how they're keeping the packages hidden."

" _Shit_ –"

"Don't worry," Helena says, her voice soft. "We can do this if we make a plan."

One of Dick's eyebrows arches up. "A plan?"

Helena nods her head. "Yeah, but we're going to wait until we get back to our room after lunch. We're going to need the bug zapper."

The aforementioned bug zapper is one of their last resorts, a device that seems torn from the pages of James Bond scripts. Thanks to SPYRAL's tech department, Helena is the proud owner of a device that works like a small scale EMP, only targeting (and turning off) devices giving off specific radio frequencies. It only lasts for an hour or two at the most, but that should be all the time that they need. For the most part, Helena is certain that no one has had the time or the skill to figure out that they're undercover a bug their room but well…

This would be the worst time for her to be wrong.

"We're still having lunch?" Dick asks, sounding surprised at the idea of eating at a time like this.

Helena raises one hand and immediately catches the attention of their waiter. "Of course," she says. "I don't know about you, but I'm starving."


	5. Part Five

After a subdued lunch together, Helena and Dick make their way back to their suite. Walking so close that their bodies brush together with every step and Helena finds herself almost hyperaware of Dick's presence. By the time that they reach the door to their suite, Helena realizes that she has more than one plan cooking in her head and this one at least doesn't require any heavy lifting or subterfuge to enact.

Dick enters the room first.

Helena shuts and locks the door behind them while Dick moves over to the bed, hooking the chain at the top and grabbing the room's only chair and stuffing it under the handle. Then she steps back, her hands on her hips.

"There," Helena announces. "No one is going to bother us for a while."

Dick flops backward onto the bed, stretching out with one arm covering his eyes while the other one stretches out across the mattress.

Instead of heading for her suitcase to dig out the bug zapper, Helena merely savors the sight of Dick stretched out across the bed before reaching up to unwind the wrap from around her head. The cloth drops to the floor without making a sound, but the clips in Helena's hair click and clank as she drops them on top of the dresser.

Helena feels more than sees Dick sit up. His attention is like a heavy weight on her skin and she feels her body warm up with a flush that makes her feel lightheaded. Helena raises her fingers to the straps of her halter, tugging at the tight knot until it finally gives. She _could_ be nice and finish changing in the bathroom, but then --

Helena has never been known for being _nice_.

"What --what are you _doing_?" Dick blurts out.

Helena laughs, her right hand holding the strings of the dress's halter-top in her hand as she cups the front of her dress with the other. "What does it look like I'm doing," she calls out in a teasing tone, "I'm taking off my clothes."

Dick's tan skin darkens with a noticeable flush. "In here?"

Helena shrugs, accidentally-on-purpose letting the dress slip down a few inches at a time until she's standing in front of Dick in just her underwear. The look of hunger that shows naked on Dick's handsome face is worth the exposure and more.

Dressed only in her strapless bra and panties that _don't_ match, Helena smiles at the way Dick can't stop looking at her. Really, he looks at her as if he can't understand why he's been given the chance to be in the same room as her.

It's highly appealing to her ego.

When Dick stands up and makes as if to cross the carpeted floor to her side, Helena holds up one hand to stall him.

"Not yet, Dick," Helena murmurs.

Somehow, she manages not to laugh at the ravenous look that Dick directs her way.

"But why --"

When Helena shakes her head, Dick falls silent. "You need to take off some more clothes too," she points out. "It's not fair that I'm so... exposed." Before the sentence even really leaves Helena's mouth, Dick starts undressing, _tearing_ off his own clothes with such haste that Helena half-expects to hear the sounds of ripping fabric with every second that passes.

A moment later, Dick is naked.

No, nearly naked.

Dick looks so good like this, dressed only in a pair of pale grey-blue boxer briefs with the evidence of his arousal arching outward as if entreating her to touch. His fingers hook in the waistband, drawing them down just enough that Helena can see the thickening line of hair at his groin and the way that his cock jerks underneath her perusal.

"Is this -- is this good?"

Helena licks her lips and then nods. "Yes," she says and then she steps forward, moving without measuring her steps because the only thing that matters is being here with Dick's arms wrapping around her and the heat of his skin almost searing hers. "Yes, Dick... _mm_."

Their mouths come together in a kiss that somehow manages to be more passionate than any that they've shared before. There's something about this kiss that's different.

Maybe it's because Helena has some semblance of a plan and she's worried. Maybe, it's because whatever their Doc told Dick has him worried. Maybe, and sadly, this for Helena is the unlikely answer, Dick is just that moved by her presence in his arms. Dick kisses Helena deeply, lips and tongue working together so well that Helena's breath catches in her throat. She doesn't know what to do -- what to _think_.

Dick kisses like a fiend, hungry and passionate. Every second that his mouth moves against hers is another second that makes Helena think about what that lovely, marvelously _mobile_ mouth would feel like between her legs or anywhere else on her skin.

Panting, Helena wrenches her mouth away from Dick's.

He blinks down at her, a faint frown on his swollen mouth. God. He looks well on his way to being thoroughly debauched and Helena has to admit that she finds a fair amount of pleasure in imagining. He's already halfway there, mouth and body aching and swollen because of _her_.

In the past two days alone, she's had her thoughts and fantasies turned on their heads. Dick is like no one that Helena has ever been with before, like no one she's ever even kissed and she flushes, her body tight with arousal in a way that makes her lose a little bit of her hard-earned control.

"We should --" Helena doesn't get to finish her sentence before Dick cuts her off.

"Stop," he says with desperation clear in his voice, "You're about to say that we should stop, aren't you?"

Helena laughs, the sound coming out wild and free to her own ears. "Not on your life," she says with a triumphant smile. "I just think that we should be moving this to the bed. Do you have a problem with that?"

Dick moves back in to take Helena's mouth in a hard kiss. When he pulls back, he's smiling down at her. "God no. God --"

Laughing, Helena pushes Dick back towards the bed, watching with no small amount of pleasure as Dick hits the mattress and bounces.

Helena wastes no time in climbing on top of him, fitting their bodies so tightly together until she swears that she can feel Dick's pulse between her legs. Yes, they're still going slowly. They can't do anything else with their mission seeming so damn _close_ to its conclusion, but this is good.

This -- the fit of Dick's cock against the damp crotch of her panties and the way that he keeps looking at her like he wants to stay there, stretched out beneath her on a borrowed bed -- is more than enough for now. It's more than enough incentive to get the job done and then drag Dick back to bed until the cruise ship docks back Puerto Rico.

"Is this okay?" Helena asks, her voice heavy with lust. She shifts on Dick's lap, grinding her clit against Dick's cock until he groans and his hands fly up to cradle her hips.

"Yes, yes, _yes_ ," Dick croons, thrusting his hips up as he pulls her down. The rhythm works immediately for them and Helena moans, body surging towards a rapidly approaching orgasm as the sounds of Dick’s moans and her own fill the air.

" _Oh_ " Helena cries out, shuddering against Dick's body as her orgasm works through her in rapid pulses. It's a fast orgasm truly, but it's definitely not a bad one. Far from it.

Moments later, when Dick grabs for her hips and holds her close as he grinds against her one last time before coming in his shorts like they're both teenagers, Helena allows herself the opportunity to fall forward. She braces herself above Dick's body, smiling down at him. She leans in and kisses him, mouth pressing against his own in a tender and sweet kiss that starts out chaste but winds up lengthening, _deepening_ \--

Dick rolls them over until Helena is on her back and Dick is playfully pinning her to the mattress.

"Not that I'm complaining," Dick says with a small but wicked smile tugging at one corner of his mouth, "But I didn't think we'd get to _this_ this quickly." He strokes one hand down Helena's side down to the curve of her right hip, calluses catching in all the right ways. Dick stops at the waistband of Helena's panties, thumbnail scratching over the skin barely hidden by all of that lace. He shifts back, putting his weight on his left arm as he holds himself so carefully above Helena. "What's the occasion?"

Helena licks her lips and then glances away for a second. Awkwardness threatens to subsume the scene, but then, with a bracing gulp of air Helena finds the strength to speak. After all, when you've gotten to a point where you've given someone an orgasm... It shouldn't be hard to t _alk_ about it with them.

"I wanted to do one last thing for myself," Helena says, her voice soft. She utters a quiet murmur of laughter and then shakes her head. "Well, for us really. Who knows _what's_ going to happen after this. I think -- no, I know that we'll have this wrapped up by the time that we've docked but Dick --”

Helena pauses, so overwhelmed that she can't _speak_. She looks up at Dick who's looking down at her, his blue eyes so warm and kind that she just reaches up for him. Helena's hands fit against the curve of Dick's skull, fingers sliding through his hair and over warm skin. When she pulls him down to kiss her again, Dick goes with a low, gruff sound that hits Helena in the gut.

They kiss as if they'll never get the chance to do it again.

This time though, Dick pulls away first.

"This isn't going to be our last kiss," Dick says, so serious that Helena nearly chokes on a burst of laughter. He leans down and kisses her again, adding a light little nip of his teeth that makes Helena jerk against the bed. Like this, spread out across the sumptuous mattress with Dick bracing himself over her and looking like he's just stepped out of her fantasies, Helena feels...

"I know," Helena says, returning Dick's smile easily enough. She pats Dick's arm and then uses his lankier frame to pull herself back up to a seated position. Helena stretches until she feels her joints sort of pop, biting back a moan at how _good_ that feels. She rakes her fingers through where her hair is an unholy _mess_ of curls from rolling all over the bed with Dick and then glances at him. Out of the corner of her eyes, Dick is smiling. He's smiling in such a smug way that Helena starts seriously considering just up and kicking him off of the bed.

"If you're done grinning at me like that," Helena says in an almost sharp tone that does absolutely nothing to mask the smile threatening to shine through on her face, "You might want to get the bug zapper from my suitcase. We've got work to do."

Dick offers Helena a lazy salute before getting off the end of the bed with far more grace than anyone fresh from an orgasm has any right to possess. Of course, Helena's eyes drift down to Dick's groin and the curve of his soft cock pressing out against the wet spot on his boxers.

Of course.

When she manages to tear her eyes away and look up at Dick's face a millisecond later, the look that Dick gives her has to be made up of equal parts smug pleasure and hunger.

"I knew you only wanted me for my body," Dick teases before he starts snickering.

The pillow that Helena sends winging his way rightfully smacks him square across the face, putting an end of that ridiculous laughter and how good it makes Helena feel. 


	6. Part Six

Eventually, they have to get dressed.

Dick turns on the bug zapper and sets it up on the small table to the left of the bed before sitting down on the floor. He looks up at Helena, the look in his eyes both serious and inquisitive as Helena spreads out a printout of the ship's blueprints in front of her.

"So," Dick says, dragging out the word until it sounds as if it has several syllables instead of just the one. "Your plan?"

"We're working on a time limit," Helena says. She jabs her fingers at part of the blueprint that shows where the exits are located. "We have less than twenty-four hours until the ship is docked in Trinidad and I have a feeling that if we wait past that, we're not going to find our smugglers."

Dick's mouth twists with a frown. "That matches up to what Doc said," Dick confesses, "He's not part of it – of course – but he's been on the ship for so long that sometimes he just hears things from the other crewmembers. They could get the metahumans off the ship on one of the islands the ship stops at and remove suspicion from the cruise line."

Helena hits the bed with her fist. "Exactly," she says as the look on Dick's face shifts to one of triumph, "It looks like a case of tourists going off the beaten path instead of people being kidnapped. No wonder no one realized what was going on earlier!"

Glancing down at the blueprints, Helena frowns. "We need to get into those rooms in the private floors," she says. "But we have to make sure that no one can get in or out while we're working. We don't have backup here and we really don't want to wish that we had."

"Doc can help with that," Dick offers.

Helena feels her left eyebrow arch up.

"Doc?" Helena asks with all of the disbelief that she can put into the single syllable of their contact's name. She shakes her head, thinking back to their mission reports and to the reputation that the man himself had garnered after over a decade of working in international espionage. "How can he help?"

Apparently, they're taking turns on giving one another relatively dirty looks because Dick shoots Helena a look that makes her flush in a way that has absolutely _nothing_ to do with pleasure.

Dick rocks up onto his knees and then taps the blueprints right over the top floor of the most expensive living quarters for their fellow passengers. "Doc's been working on this ship since it launched. If there's anyone here with more authority than him, I don't want to see them. All he has to do is _suggest_ that there's something on the top floor, some kind of contaminant, and it'll be sectioned off."

It's a good plan and Helena says as much before doing her best to poke holes in it.

"What about the guards they send up?" Helena asks. "How do you know that they won't be in on it and try to move them anyway?"

Dick shakes his head. "Do you really think that Doc'd let anyone in on this that he didn't trust? He has his own people on the ship. They'll make sure that no one leaves the floor before we do." At the wide-eyed look that Helena sends his way, Dick hastily holds up his hands. "They're going to have papers for the quarantine and tranq guns in case official-looking paperwork doesn't work. No fatalities necessary."

Helena shakes her head, but she has to admit defeat. Dick really has thought of a way to fill in the missing spaces in her plan. She glances back down at the blueprints and then looks at Dick.

"So we're really going to do this," she says, her voice a low murmur even with the bug zapper humming away from beside them. "We're going to have the ship's doctor quarantine an entire section of the ship so that we can search for missing people. And we're doing this with no backup. What if I'm wrong?"

Dick grins, holding his right hand up so that Helena can see where he has his index finger and thumb almost touching. "We'll have a little bit of backup," he says, "And seriously when have your hunches ever been wrong?"

Helena bites her lip but doesn't offer any example –

Especially not the ones that she _could_ be offering, the ones about how Dick continues to turn every single one of her expectations or assumptions upside down.

"When are we going to do this?" Helena asks instead.

Dick smirks. "That depends," he says, "How do you feel about missing another formal dinner?"

Helena nearly chokes on her own laughter. "Seriously?"

Shrugging, Dick's gaze darts up towards Helena's face. "It's the perfect time to get around without anyone noticing," Dick says, "All Doc has to do is say that we're with him and we'll have the whole floor to ourselves."

"You're putting a lot of faith in the good doctor," Helena says in a dry tone. "Have you even asked him about any of this?"

Dick at least has the decency to look away, cheeks turning ruddy with a flush. "I – I'm going to," he insists, "I still have to check out the different entrances that the employees use to get around and I told him that I'd stop by to fill him in on our plans." Dick pauses, mouth not _quite_ set in a frown. "Are you okay with that? I mean, you can always come down and –"

When Helena shakes her head, Dick falls silent. "It's fine," she says. "I was planning on resting a bit before this anyway and it's not like I expect you to watch me while I sleep."

"That'd be creepy," Dick says needlessly, nose wrinkling at the thought.

Helena laughs again, shaking her head.

What is _it_ about Dick that makes her laugh like she hasn't laughed in years?

Even now at a time that is far from funny, laughter is the first reaction that comes to Helena's mind. Helena touches her fingertips to the corners of her eyes and then inhales deeply, willing herself to calm down before she looks at Dick again.

"Can I stay with you until you fall asleep?" Dick asks. When Helena perhaps takes a bit too long to answer, Dick shifts backward. "Okay, maybe not. I –"

Helena rolls her eyes and then reaches out to grab Dick's shoulder. "Shut up," Helena says. She's already tugging Dick up and using his own eagerness to get him where she wants him, but the words seem to spur Dick on. "Shut up and get in the bed."

*

Helena wakes up to darkness and an empty bed.

According to the clock on the nightstand beside her, it's only seven at night, a few minutes before the first round of formal dinners are scheduled to begin in the ship's big banquet halls. When Helena rolls over in the king-sized bed, she reaches out at where Dick had been stretched out beside her and her fingers hit cool sheets.

Helena starts to sit up and stretch, but then, the door to their suite glides open, light from the hallway slicing through the near blackness of the room.

Helena freezes, her right hand sliding underneath her pillow in order to grab the little knife that she's kept there since their very first day on the cruise. The blade's short hilt fits well in her palm and Helena flexes, body taut with tension as a figure appears to block the light.

"Richard," Helena calls out in an approximation of her voice if it'd truly been heavy with sleep. She stretches out across the bed, keeping her right hand out of sight as she shifts. "Richard, love, is that you?"

By now, Helena is more than well aware of Dick's issues with killing. She respects him for it. It can't be easy to be a spy that won't kill their targets. However, despite the uneasy truce that they've made over the one major thing that they don't agree on, Helena is more than prepared to kill and call it self-defense.

"Richard?" Helena calls again.

The door closes with a weighty pneumatic thud, plunging them back into darkness. Helena doesn't breathe. She can't. Not with fear tightening her throat and telling her to just throw the damn knife already.

Hearing Dick's voice a few moments later is a relief.

"It's me, Helena," Dick says. "I'm okay."

Helena growls out a curse underneath her breath and then gropes for the light switch next to the bed with her free hand. Eventually, she lets go of the knife.

"Why weren't you here?" Helena asks. "I was worried. I thought –"

When Dick shakes his head, Helena falls silent.

"I'm sorry I was late," Dick says. "Doc, well… Doc found something big and wanted me to take a look at it. I didn't want to make him wait."

There's something that Helena doesn't like about Dick's tone. She sits up on the bed, fingers reaching up to twist in her curly black hair. "Did it pan out?"

Dick… doesn't answer. He comes close to the bed, but he doesn't answer.

Helena frowns. "Dick?"

Several seconds pass before Dick answers. "Yeah."

"Yeah? Yeah _what_?"

"It's big," Dick murmurs. He leaves it at that.

It's clear that there's something he's keeping to himself and Helena hates that. Here they are mere barely an hour away from finishing their mission and Dick is acting out of character. This can't be allowed to continue.

Helena swings her legs around to the side of the bed and then stands up, coming face to face with Dick.

"Dick," Helena says and then stops, unsure of how to continue. "What happened? What did Doc say?" When Dick opens his mouth, Helena holds up one hand to stall him because she knows that look. "And _don't_ lie to me please."

Dick nods his head, looking miserable. "You're right. I'm sorry, I –" Dick pauses and then sucks in a deep breath of air. "They have _kids_ , Helena. Doc and I found paperwork hidden in a cache hidden in one of the employee lounges and they have two adults and three kids ready to get off the ship when we dock."

Helena's first instinct is to curse and to curse _loudly_.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," Dick says in such a grim tone that he sounds like his former partner. "The passengers matched information on the passenger manifest and on top of that, Doc recognized the youngest child. He treated her for an ear infection on the second day. He hasn't seen her or her entire family since then."

Helena feels her top lip _curl_ when she thinks back to the noise she had heard on the top floor and the way that Jeffrey Ottez had seemed so suspicious of her. Everything in Helena's head, everything that she _is_ as a spy and as a personis telling her that this is it. This is the missing piece. They're not just picking random metahumans off of these cruises. No, it's much worse than that.

If an entire family goes missing all at once, it makes it that much easier to bury it.

"I'm going to shower and get dressed," Helena announces just in time to hear thunder echoing in the air outside. "I'm going to get dressed and then we're going to finish this."

Dick protests. "But Helena," he says, "What about the plan, we  –"

Helena doesn't hesitate to silence Dick with a sharp look.

"We're just going to have to start it a bit early," Helena says. "I'm sure Doc will understand that we need to speed things up a little." Helena sighs and then reaches for one of Dick's hands, stroking his sun-kissed skin with a touch so light that it barely feels real. She uses that touch to pull Dick in and then she kisses him lightly on the lips.

Helena doesn't have any more reasons, any more circular arguments as to why she can't use her power in SPYRAL to save the day and get the guy on top of that. All she has is the knowledge that they're going up against something terrible and largely unknown and that's more of a driving force than anything.

"When this is done," Helena says, almost startling herself when she hears the intensity in her own voice as she talks to Dick. "When this is done, we're taking the rest of this vacation for ourselves. Okay?"

Dick laughs and then sweeps Helena into his arms, kissing her soundly before setting her back down on the ground. Even after they separate, things don't stay that way for very long with Dick stealing one last kiss before Helena scoffs playfully and pushes him back.

"No more distractions," Helena says, "We've got some people to save."


	7. Part Seven

In the flickering light of the hallway, the gold lettering room '610B' looks more ominous than a door has any right looking.

Helena frowns at the door as if she's expecting it to come to life and attack her. Armed with a flashlight, a tranquilizer gun of her own, and darts of Doc's own tranquilizer serum, Helena is almost entirely back in her element.

"Hey," Dick murmurs, leaning in close so that his lips brush Helena's ear. "You can do this." He doesn't kiss her, not exactly. Doc and his people are watching them, and now, with her mission goggles snugged tight to her forehead, SPYRAL has their feed streaming back to headquarters for their fellow agents to see. Dick squeezes Helena's shoulders once and then takes a step backward, letting Helena take charge and unlock the door.

Helena's stolen keycard works like a charm. The door to 610B swings open with the lightest touch of Helena's fingers, revealing a dark suite of rooms that at first glance looks to be a twin to the one that Helena had stumbled into earlier. Dick closes the door behind them, plunging the room into a darkness so thick that Helena can barely see the shapes and shadows of her hand until she switches on her flashlight.

The suite of rooms is quiet.  

Too quiet.

Suddenly, she hears a quiet noise like a sob. It sounds too similar to the noise from earlier to be a coincidence and Helena starts forward, booted feet barely making nay noise on the thick carpet. This suite has three rooms aside from the living room and the suite's wide-open dining area, and Helena frowns at the thought of checking them all.

Doc's people are probably good enough backup.

Alright, they're the only backup that Helena and Dick _can_ get while on a ship in the middle of the ocean. But Helena is determined to leave them outside the suite and in the hallway, looking suitably menacing to anyone trying to get to their rooms. Helena heads toward the room on the left of the suite. When she tests the handle, it opens with a low creaking noise that causes the hairs on the back of her neck to stand straight up. This room isn't dark. Not like the rest of the suite that Helena and Dick have seen so far. It's a bedroom on the smaller side and of course...

It's perfectly empty.

Helena leaves Dick standing by the door and then goes to check on her own, going as far as to look underneath the bed and in the closets. Aside from a (thankfully empty) suitcase and several shoeboxes, Helena doesn't find anything. She gets back to her feet and then heads back to the door.

"This one's a bust," Helena says when she passes by Dick.

His frown matches hers.

"Nothing?"

Shaking her head, Helena tells Dick about the empty suitcase and the shoeboxes. "It doesn't look like anyone's been in that room for a while," she mutters. "Hopefully, that's a good thing."

The next room -- the bathroom -- yields the same result.

At the last door, Helena pauses, fingers hovering over the doorknob. This has to be it. When she tests the door a moment later only to find it locked, she almost shouts with happiness. Instead of well.. ruining the entire operation, Helena turns to Dick.

"Hey," she says in a low voice, "Tell me that you still have your lock picking kit with you." The kit was a little gift from some of the former students back at St. Hadrian's and it has more than come in handy on multiple missions. On this one, it's incredibly useful. Dick nods and them drops down on his knees in front of the door as he gets to work with the kit's incredibly minuscule tools.

Out of all of the things that Helena can do in her _sleep_ , lock picking isn't one of them and so when the door's lock comes undone with a muted click, Helena lets out a relieved sigh.

"Be careful," Dick warns when Helena turns the knob.

Helena almost catches herself smiling into the night but she stops herself just in time.

Unlike the rest of the suite, this room isn't empty.

Not even close to it.

Sitting together on the bed are two young children and a teenager that looks just shy of graduating from high school. They're all dark-skinned redheads and they all look similar to one another in the way that siblings often do. And of course, there's the proof of their metahuman nature, the black bands of the government-issued power limiters that are used to keep metahuman prisoners from using their powers in confined spaces. If they weren't metas, they wouldn't have those on.

The three girls don't notice Helena at first. They're too busy holding onto one another and cringing away from whatever horrors have come to them before to notice that they're okay and that the people standing in front of them aren't the ones that they're used to.

Dick steps out from behind of Helena. His gun is holstered and his arms are outstretched in the universal symbol for "hey, I'm harmless". He doesn't even wait for Helena to give the all clear, but truthfully, Helena doesn't blame him. She can't.

What she _can_ do is provide Dick with good cover, standing in the room's door way and facing the rest of the suite with the tranquilizer gun aimed squarely at the door. If anyone dares to come in through that door, then they _will_ be going down.

From behind her, Helena can hear Dick talking to the children in a gentle tone. She doesn't pay too much attention to him, more focused on this part of the job and not letting down her guard for a second.

"Hey, Helena," Dick says from right up close. "The smugglers still have the kids' moms. They're in another room."

Helena doesn't curse this time.

Out loud at least.

"Which room?"

One of the girls points across the room at the door in front of Helena's sights.

The door to room 610A.

"They're in there?" Helena asks just for clarification. When that same little girl nods, Helena smiles. It's not even _close_ to a nice smile and Helena doesn't really need the startled gasps that she hears coming from the three children to tell her that. But that doesn't matter. Not now. Helena can make things up to them later. After she shows the smugglers the incredible error of their ways.

"Good," Helena murmurs. "Now I want you three to go to the bathroom next to this room and lock yourselves in. Do you think you can do that for me?" The two younger children nod at once while their teenaged sister scowls at Helena.

"How do we even know that you're here to help us?" The teenager speaks sharply, holding her sisters close as she stares up at Helena with fear and anger clear in her eyes. "You could be working with those guys that locked us in here. How do we know that you're not trying to use us to make our moms do what you want?"

That's a good question and one that Helena isn't quite sure how to answer. However, she has to try.

"I know it seems scary," Helena says in a careful and calm voice. "But we're the good guys. We're here to help and the only way we can do that, is by getting the three of you someplace safe. The bathroom locks from the inside and it's practically the only place that you can go where no one else can get in. I promise that we'll get your moms back but you have to do this for me."

The next few moments are tense; Helena and the three girls stare at one another in silence. The teenager's gaze is the most piercing. Helena doesn't cave, doesn't look away even when she wants to.

Eventually, it pays off. The teenager gets off the bed first and then helps both of her little sisters down before walking towards Helena. The look on her face is openly hostile but Helena senses some trust being offered.

"They didn't hurt us," the girl offers in a quiet voice, "They fed us once a day and let us use the bathroom when we had to go. But I think – I think they were going to take us off the ship soon." She looks up into Helena's eyes and the expression on her face is so old and so tortured that Helena actually wishes for her crossbow and some of the sharper bolts so that she could hurt the men that frightened the three girls. "They told us that if we were good, that they'd let us get off the ship tomorrow."

Oh no.

Helena grits her teeth until her jaws hurt.

Thankfully, Dick takes over. "Can you tell me how many people were involved?"

"Yeah, four. Two ladies and two older guys," one of the two children says. "They kept calling one of the guys Jeffrey when they were on the phone." Above the children's heads, Dick and Helena share a look.

"Go in the bathroom," Helena says again. "We'll come back for you the second that we can."

*

The door that connects the suites isn't locked.

Dick snorts. "Either this is a trap, or these are the worst smugglers in the world."

"Thanks for jinxing us," Helena mutters before she nudges the door open with the toe of her left boot. This suite is brighter than the last and far more populated. Helena counts more than four people in the room, none of whom look anything like the photographs that Doc had shown them of the missing mothers.

They don't stand a chance.

Helena shoots three people with her tranquilizer gun and flings her flashlight at a woman in a maid's uniform as she scrambles for a knife on the nearby coffee table. At the same time, Dick makes short work of the rest of the people in the room. The thuds of unconscious or semi-conscious bodies hitting the floor shouldn't sound as satisfying as it does but really, Helena can't bring herself to care.

By the time that they're done, only one person remains conscious in 610A's living room area: Jeffery Ottez. When Dick starts forward, Helena shakes her head.

"No," she says in a low growling tone that she hardly recognizes as her own voice, "He's mine. Go get those girls back together with their parents, okay?" When Dick doesn't immediately move, Helena turns back to look at him. "What?"

Dick pauses, his mouth open. "I know you're not going to kill him," he says after a few seconds pass, "But I'd understand why you had to do it if you really went through with it." Dick holds her gaze for a while longer and then steps away. "Let me get Doc first in case we need his expertise afterwards.

It's not tacit approval of Helena's tactics, but well –

It's a start.

Helena smiles widely at Ottez and then reaches for the knife on the coffee table. It's a pretty little knife, so glossy and small that Helena doesn't think she could cut her nails with the blade much less a person. But Ottez doesn't know that. He winces when Helena presses the knife into the skin of his jaw, putting just enough pressure that a tiny pinprick of red appears on his skin.

"Is this your whole operation?"

Ottez gapes at Helena. "My – my what?"

Helena growls. "I won't ask you again," she snarls. "Is this your entire operation or am I going to have to kick down some more doors to find your friends? And please, don't lie to me unless you want an extremely close shave."

Honestly, Helena's expecting to have to do a little bit more work. She's expecting to have to do more than openly _hint_ at torture but almost before she finishes speaking, Ottez starts spilling. He confesses everything from the smuggling to embezzlement and more. All while crying. At the end of it, Helena is almost thankful for her goggles and the fact that she doesn't have to write down any of it.

Ten minutes later, Dick comes back in with Doc and both of his nurses in tow. "What's the verdict," Dick says with one pointed look directed at Ottez's sweat and tear streaked face.

"This is most of the smuggling ring," Helena says.

"Most of it?" The question comes from Doc as he helps his assistants tie up the various members of the smuggling ring. Tall and thin with light brown skin and green eyes, Doc doesn't actually look that much like a doctor. Or a former member of one of the more intensive espionage agencies in the northern hemisphere. He kind of looks like a lost tourist, but that is probably why he succeeds so well at this new identity.

"There are two Borovian members of the ring on Trinidad," Helena says with one last dark look at Ottez's pathetic form. "When I call to arrange pickup for these smugglers, I'll have my people send someone out to collect them too."

Doc nods. "You're pretty far away from your chair, Director," he says to Helena. "I didn't know that SPYRAL let their directors do field work. Must be something new."

Helena shoots the man a dirty look but otherwise stays silent. It's none of Doc's business what SPYRAL gets up to these days or how they run the office. If Helena doesn't need to know anything about Checkmate's day-to-day operations, then Doc doesn't need to know anything about how SPRYAL has been reorganized in the months following her term as its director.

"If you don't mind handling things for us," Helena says as she gets to her feet and dusts herself off, "We've got to call this one in."

Helena and Dick make it halfway to the door before Doc calls them back.

"Wait! What are you going to tell them?"

Helena blinks. "About what?"

"The metahumans," Doc says slowly. "You can't tell your people about the family or else they'll –" Doc doesn't get to finish speaking. Helena doesn't let him.

"I'm going to be very clear with you Doc," Helena says with a sunny smile as she pauses in front of the door that leads out to the hallway. Dick goes ahead of her, giving her a worried look. "SPYRAL's operations are absolutely none of your business unless they directly involve you or we ask for your _paid_ assistance. Please, try to remember that."

With that, she leaves Doc and the assistants in that dreary room.

"That was cold," Dick says, the moment that they're alone in the hallway. "Doc's not a bad guy."

Helena shrugs. "Maybe, but I don't like anyone telling me what I can or can't do. It's none of his business what comes next."

*

Despite the hour, Tiger answers the phone in Helena's office.

"Is it done?" Tiger asks once Helena assures him that she's using a secure line on her satellite phone.

"The smugglers are tied up in a suite and there are several more that'll be waiting at the docks when the ship lands at Trinidad," Helena says. "We'll need two teams. One for the smugglers on the ship and for Doc's payment along with another one for the island."

There's silence for several seconds on Tiger's end. When he speaks next, there's a marked blankness in his tone.

"And the metahumans?" Tiger asks. "Should I tell Frau Netz to prepare rooms for them?"

Helena chances a quick glance at Dick. Frau Netz may not be the worst person that the small family could end up with, but Helena knows better than anyone that SPYRAL is a difficult environment to grow up in. Thinking quickly, Helena murmurs her denial.

"Unfortunately, there were no survivors," Helena says. "We were too late."

Tiger growls in Helena's ear. "Too _late_?"

"We stopped the smugglers, but even with aid from Doc and his people, we were unable to collect the metahuman subjects." Helena replies. The lie falls easily from her tongue and Helena risks injecting a little annoyance in her tone. "We did our best, but were unable to secure them."

Dick frowns at Helena, but before he can open his mouth and blow Helena's attempt at subterfuge clear out of the water, she frowns right back at him.

"Now, Tiger," Helena says, practically purring the syllables. "If you don't have anything else for us to do, I'm taking both Dick and myself off active duty until the end of the cruise. After what we've been through, I think that we've earned the vacation." She pauses just long enough to catch Dick's eye and wink at him. "Don't you?"


	8. Part Eight

_Epilogue_

In the weeks after Helena and Dick's mission, things change.

Not on the surface of course, Helena and Dick are very firmly in the honeymoon stage of their new relationship, but neither one of them is foolish enough to show any of that. Helena may be one third of SPYRAL current leadership but that doesn't mean that she's above the rules, only that she can find easier ways of getting around them.

It's dangerous keeping secrets within an organization like SPYRAL but Helena has always loved a challenge.

Helena's apartments aren't with the rest of the SPYRAL agents. She sleeps in one of St. Hadrian's towers, her rooms just far enough from the student body that the girls' noise doesn't bother her, but close enough that she can scare them into better behavior when she needs to. Of course, the fact that none of her girls have ever managed to make it up all those stairs to actually knock on her bedroom door?

Well that's a definite plus.

Coming home from tireless negotiations with A.R.G.U.S. only to find Dick sitting in her bed along with still-steaming takeout containers from the only Indian place in two kilometers that’s willing to deliver to St. Hadrian's might actually be the better bonus. Helena pauses in the doorway of her room, mouth agape as Dick grins at her.

"You're here," Helena says, a little catch to her voice as Dick gets off the bed and comes towards her, shirtless, smiling, _hers_. She still can't believe that she can have this, that she can have _Dick_ and these moments hidden away from the rest of the agency. It's been a month since coming back from their vacation and Helena still can't wrap her mind around it.

Dick leans in for a kiss, lips parted expectantly. When Helena presses close and kisses him back, Dick groans into the kiss, hands settling at Helena's hips as his thumbs slide teasingly underneath the reinforced fabric of Helena's suit jacket. Dick teases, fingers staying just above the slick silk of her camisole without daring to dip underneath and touch skin.

"How'd you get up here?" Helena asks. She has to lean back slightly to do it and that means leaning out of the circle of Dick's strong arms but curiosity has always been one of her weaknesses.

Dick shrugs and the gesture looks so very good on him that Helena finds herself licking her lips. "I climbed in," Dick says, so casually that you'd think that it was something that he did every day. "Trust me, it was hell getting the food up here in one piece, but I think it was worth it."

Helena has to laugh and then shake her head. "You're ridiculous," she says with a more than fond note to her voice. "You could've just called me for the security codes."

"Then it wouldn't have been a surprise though," Dick points out. He reaches down to take Helena's right hand and hold it in both of his, stroking the skin with a light touch, barely lingering over where some of Helena's skin is a faintly paler brown from scars and scrapes that never healed right. "Isn't this good?"

Helena looks at the food and then at Dick. She bites at her bottom lip and then nods. "Yeah," she confesses, in a voice that has suddenly gone hoarse, "It is."

*

Later, Helena finds herself stretched out in bed on her stomach, naked with Dick on top of her. At every moment when she tries to participate further or roll over so that she can draw him down into a kiss, Dick shakes his head and gently but firmly pushes her arms back down to the mattress.

"Can't I just do something nice for you?" Dick asks the very next time that Helena's impatience gets the best of her and she tries to wriggle around, a mockingly mournful note in his voice. He shifts above her, knees digging into the mattress on either side of Helena's hips as his hands return to Helena's shoulders.

The massage – or rather, Dick's desire to give her one, -- doesn't come as much of a surprise to Helena. Dick, she's come to realize from their time working together, is a giver. He's good and caring and very attentive when it comes right down to it. He enjoys this, possibly more than she does and Helena moans, rubbing her face against the sheets as pleasure makes her go languid.

Dick is gentle but persistent as he moves from kneading Helena's shoulders to easing the tension out of her back. Never pressing too hard or for too long, he does some kind of magic with his fingers that leaves her gasping as her toes curl. Helena stretches out as much as she can underneath the gentle weight of Dick's body, trying to think past the pleasure coming from Dick's hands as he skillfully works her muscles until she's almost a puddle from it.

“Dick?” Helena actually has to say his name twice before he turns away from his task.

Dick pauses, thumbs resting on her lower back for a second, and then rolls off of Helena so quickly that she almost doesn't register his movement. He watches, licking his lips as Helena sits up and stretches her arms all the way above her head.

“Um,” Dick says. Ever predictable, his gaze falls on Helena's bare chest. “Yes?”

Helena wants to laugh, but she bites her bottom lip to keep the sound in. “I'm not going to let you have all the fun.”

*

With the lights out in Helena's apartment, it's easy to pretend that she and Dick are elsewhere. It's easy to pretend that they're still the happily married newlyweds on their honeymoon or that they're a normal couple in their first home.

When Helena shifts against the mattress, Dick murmurs something against her skin and then slowly, comes to wakefulness. In the light trickling from outside, Dick's blue eyes look luminous.  He blinks at her rapidly, possibly in an attempt to convince himself -- and her -- that he's not about to roll over and go back to sleep.

 “Helena,” Dick murmurs, and then he surprises her by propping himself up on his left forearm.

“Yeah?” Helena responds, reaching up to card her fingers through Dick's sleep-mussed hair. She smiles a little when he leans into her touch and his eyes fall shut. “Why are you awake?”

Dick isn't awake, not yet and not really, but he keeps moving closer and closer to Helena until he threatens to topple right over into her cleavage. Hell, he even responds without opening his eyes once to look at her.

“Felt you moving 'round,” Dick says in a voice that's mostly fuzzy with sleep. "What's wrong?"

Helena shrugs. "Nothing," she says.

She feels more than sees Dick smile against her skin. "Liar," he accuses gently. "You think I can't tell by now when you're stressing out about something?" Dick starts to trace patterns into the skin of Helena's side where her body curves around his. "What's wrong?"

At first, Helena balks at the idea of actually talking about her feelings – feelings that she feels for the very man that's in bed with her. But then she pauses practically mid-thought, making up her mind in that moment.

"I think that SPYRAL needs to rethink its anti-fraternization policy," Helena says in a lofty, almost casual tone. It honestly _doesn't_ sound as if the thought has been keeping Helena up all night. "We're secret agents yes, and I understand that entanglements can be dangerous, but at the same time… We shouldn't have to sneak around. That's not right."

Dick nods to show that he agrees and then rolls over, flopping out with his right arm stretching out until his hand hangs off of the mattress.

"You're right," Dick says. "And if we're dating each other, at least we're not sleeping with the competition or civilians." He opens his eyes at that and makes a face that scrunches up his nose. "See what you've done? Now I'm even talking like you!"

Helena swats Dick lightly across his forearm as she laughs.

"Seriously, Dick," she says, trying to redirect their conversation. "I'm going to bring this up at the next meeting. It doesn't make sense to have such harsh penalties for fraternization. We're supposed to be ferreting out everyone else's secrets so why are our agents forced to keep this big one?"

"Are you sure that you don't want to go back to being the only person in charge of SPYRAL?" Dick asks, a faint smile on his face.

Helena snorts out a laugh, rolling her eyes at the same time even though Dick isn't looking up to see her face.

"Hell no," she says honestly. "The fact that I can delegate whenever I want to and that I'm not stuck behind a desk all day is the better job. Believe me, I'm happy as Matron." Then she glances down at Dick and she can't resist the urge to stroke the side of his face with her fingertips or the desire to lean down and kiss Dick's sleep-softened mouth until he moans and nips at her skin.  "But it'd be nice if I didn't have to talk everyone into voting my way…"

Dick shakes his head. "Not everyone," he points out. "Frau Netz and Tiger both agree with you."

"Tiger?" Helena doesn't understand. Frau Netz is a delightfully cheerful pervert. Of course she'll vote for anything that gets her more fodder for her stories. But Tiger and the anti-fraternization rule? "What –"

"Hey, we've got our secrets and he's got his," Dick says. "Now let's go back to sleep before one of your girls decides that things are too quiet and blows another garage up in the middle of the night."

And that, Helena thinks, is as good a reason to fall asleep as any she's heard before.

Tomorrow, though… Tomorrow she'll change SPYRAL some more.


End file.
